Nook Color Rooted — Will B&N Embrace the Tablet?

itwbennett writes "It can browse the web, edit Office docs, run apps. Is it a low-cost, low-function e-reader? Nope, it's a Nook. And now that XDA has rooted it, how Barnes & Noble responds will determine whether the Nook has a tablet future, says blogger Ryan Faas. 'If the device can be turned into a capable Android tablet (which technically it already is) easily, the $250 price tag certainly beats out some of the competition.'"

Comments

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[Barny]

How they react will likely depend on their price setting method.

If the nook was priced under cost and expected to be subsidised by ebook sales, then they will come down on this like apple. If they are making money on the thing in its own right, they may react like a BSD developer.

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[FatLittleMonkey]

Mind you, loss leaders (which subsidised hardware for expensive consumables are) are a distortion of a free market. Anything which undermines it is wholesome and good.

(Used to buy for a small retailer. Often the shelf price at large retailers was less than the wholesale price from the manufacturer/distributor. But they had "Three per customer" type limits, which turns out to be illegal under my State's consumer laws (written specifically to punish loss-leaders, apparently.) Used to make for fun public arguments.)

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[Barny]

Yeah, work in retail myself, in the past have been asked by a boss to go to a competitor and buy all their stock of one item, because they were selling it cheaper than our wholesaler.

And yes, we have similar laws in my state too :)

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[Opportunist]

This pretty much hits the nail on the head.

It could well turn out that the interesting price tag is only possible because the tethering supposedly recovers the lower hardware price. You see the same done from printers to cellphones to coffee makers, and it's getting more and more commonplace these days.

And while I do find this pricing policy despicable and there should be something done about this kind of racketeering (face it, that's what it is. You bought my hardware, now buy the consumables with me or your nifty hardware is a paperweight, how'd you call that?), but until our lawmakers get their fat butts lifted we have to take care that this kind of practice fails.

Transparency is the friend of free enterprise. When the customer can compare prices AND qualities easily, he can make a better informed choice and thus can reward those that produce a product suitable to the needs of the customer. And once SOME companies return to the policy of producing what the CUSTOMER wants and not what THEY want, we might start to return to a free market economy.

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[noidentity]

Mind you, loss leaders (which subsidised hardware for expensive consumables are) are a distortion of a free market.

Indeed, they shouldn't be allowed to do such a thing in a free market.

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[noidentity]

Your competitor might actually like that. It means that you stop buying from your distributor, such that you might not be able to buy from them again, or not as good a price as you used to, so when your competitor stops selling at below-wholesale prices, you are worse off than before.

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[MrQuacker]

You are using that word ... it does not mean what you think it means.

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[Anonymous Coward]

If they're free, I'll take three.

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[FatLittleMonkey]

Yeah, work in retail myself, in the past have been asked by a boss to go to a competitor and buy all their stock of one item,

Actually, that's the only exemption under our law. You can't buy them out. (That's meant to prevent a larger company (with deeper pockets) from ruining a genuine sale for a smaller competitor.)

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[noidentity]

Help me out then. Maybe I don't grasp what a free market is, though my thinking matches Wikipedia's introductory sentence:

A free market is a market in which there is no economic intervention and regulation by the state, except to enforce private contracts and the ownership of property. It is the opposite of a controlled market, in which the state directly regulates how goods, services and labor may be used, priced, or distributed, rather than relying on the mechanism of private ownership.

I hope it was clear that I was using sarcasm in my previous message.

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[Registered Coward v2]

Mind you, loss leaders (which subsidised hardware for expensive consumables are) are a distortion of a free market. Anything which undermines it is wholesome and good.

How? The consumer can decide what they want to buy and where - and get slower prices as a result. If consumables are the real profit center, a store could not sell the loss leader and put some of the savings to lower consumable prices; so the store selling the loss leader either lowers consumable prices or loses money. In the end, the consumer benefits from free market prices.

A free market allows individuals to set prices and determine desired profits; not some manufacturer or government. Nor does it ensure everyone will make a profit.

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[FatLittleMonkey]

Mind you, loss leaders (which subsidised hardware for expensive consumables are) are a distortion of a free market. Anything which undermines it is wholesome and good.

Argh, stupid grammar. What I wrote is misleading.

"Anything which undermines it..." means "anything which undermines market distortion via loss-leaders", not "anything which undermines a free market". Is that any clearer, or did I just make it worse?

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[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is that loss leaders are only profitable in a non-free market.
The suggestion here is that they use the hardware to lock in the user into a system where they have a monopoly on software.
While the customer can still decide wether to buy a non-locked product instead of a locked one it is quite hard to compare prices between the different products since you can't really predict the pricing of software in a monopolized system and thus have no way of knowing if the product you buy will be cheaper or more expesive in the end.
This would of course not be a problem if the market was really free and not protected by patents, copyright and other laws.

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[FatLittleMonkey]

Well, I thought you were being a complete sarcastic bastard, No-Id, if that helps?

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[Anonymous Coward]

ooo where can I get in on these slower prices? I hate when my prices are too fast.

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[jellomizer]

Please explain how this is a distortion of a free market.
You have supply, demand and a fixed cost.
Now if the supply and demand equilibrium falls under your fixed cost. That usually means that it may not be the best product to sell. However if over the use of the product there is the ability to bring in more revenue. Then the loss would be considered as an investment. Much the same as an advertising campaign. As right now the cost of the ereader is more then the market wants they will loose a lot more in content.

It is a classic give away the razor and sell the blades.

Now yes if it being sold under price B&N will make a fuss as they are giving a way a product that costs them money for no return.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's the only exemption under our law. You can't buy them out.

Can you buy all but one? Failing that all but two? All but one boxful? Sounds like Sorites paradox to me.

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[FatLittleMonkey]

You can't buy them out.

Can you buy all but one? ... Sounds like Sorites paradox to me.

Yeah, I thought that too, at the time. It's one of those vague "unreasonable" laws. It relies on judicial interpretation of "reasonable", and of the buyers perceived intent.

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[noidentity]

Well, I figured the fact that I was saying something similar to "We all know that 1+1=3..." but I guess when it comes to the free market, such an obviously contradictory statement is commonplace and meant seriously, sadly.

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[Anonymous Coward]

the Corporation is anathema to a free market in that they become de-facto government and can then use loss leaders and such to exert their power (and thus unfairly regulate) the market.

I believe the market you are humorously promoting is not a free market, but one regulated by an Oligarchy.

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[delinear]

Agreed - loss leaders in themselves are not a distortion of the free market. What would be a distortion is the producer being able to use the law to prevent people buying the razor and then using their own cheap blades (or in B&N's case, someone buying the Nook and not using it to buy books if it is indeed an example of a loss leader). A free market should allow you to come up with whatever promotional ideas you want to make money, but similarly it should allow your customers to ignore your ideas and do their own thing. The second those ideas have some element that is enforced by law (i.e. you can ONLY use product X with service Y and tampering with X to allow Z is illegal) it is no longer free.

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[VisiX]

In this way it resembles nearly every other law on the books.

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[abigsmurf]

Feel free to take three for free, it'll free up space.

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[abe ferlman]

Laws against slavery restrict the free market too. The free market is not an unmitigated good.

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[0100010001010011]

Could you explain 'come down like Apple'? Apple's been rather passive when it comes to the OSX86 and Jailbreaking community. They do patch the bugs that allow jailbreaking, but that's to be expected.

They did go hard after Pystar, but they were looking to turn a profit from it.

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[Abcd1234]

the Corporation is anathema to a free market in that they become de-facto government and can then use loss leaders and such to exert their power

And when, exactly, did it become illegal for smaller businesses to sell things as loss leaders? Did the Evil Corporations(tm) pass legislation at some point that limits the razor-and-blade model to only businesses of a certain size or something?

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[whoop]

Exactly! Selling something at a loss is the EXACT same thing as selling people. I wish more people could see the connection, my friend.

Oh, and you know who else sells things at a loss to make more money on consumables? Hitler. So only buy a Nook if you support Hitler.

Thank you.

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[MorpheousMarty]

Mind you, loss leaders (which subsidised hardware for expensive consumables are) are a distortion of a free market.

Indeed, they shouldn't be allowed to do such a thing in a free market.

Guys like you crack me up. You depend on the regulations as much or more than anyone else. You couldn't handle a truly free market. In a market with no regulations, you can't enforce a contract. In a truly free market your grocer can sell you poison and not tell you. If that's freedom to you, more power to you, but get ready to be screwed constantly, and screw constantly, because you won't survive unless you sink to their level.

The real free market, the one the people who coined the phrase intended, is a specific set of constraints to produce a fair marketplace. It is tightly regulated to ensure it works as desired, it is by no means a free for all.

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[hedwards]

Clearly. Loss leaders themselves are not a violation of free market capitalism per se, but the things that they do to make it work are. Adam Smith was completely opposed to any sort of monopoly over anything. No exceptions at all. And in order for loss leaders to work in most cases you have to have some sort of monopoly. Even if it is just requiring the users to buy products that are licensed for it by producers that pay a licensing fee for the privilege.

Specifically what you're missing is that the definition you're using is wrong. A market like that would not and could not exist. That's going back to Adam Smiths initial writings. A free market of that sort will always end up in a single supplier monopoly over everything. It's just a question of how long it takes and whether people get fed up early enough to do something about it.

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[mcgrew]

We're nerds, not businessmen. For every MBA here you'll probably find five physicists, fifteen biologists, fifty engineers, and five hundred programmers.

If you're an economist, you're probably on the wrong site.

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[jenningsthecat]

Barnes and Noble is, first and foremost, a book retailer, dependant on and beholden to publishers. Since rooting is the first step towards defeating Digital Restrictions Management, I suspect that B&N will fight rooting as hard as they can for as long as they can, regardless of the Nook's pricing model.

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[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

then they will come down on this like apple.

Really? All I've seen Apple do is fix security vulnerabilities in their iOS devices. I haven't seen them, "come down" on jailbreaking. No one's gone to jail for jailbreaking.

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[rerogo]

In a market with no regulations, you can't enforce a contract.

What makes the muscle I pay to enforce my contracts with taxes inherently better than independently contracted muscle?

In a truly free market your grocer can sell you poison and not tell you.

He can do that now too. Occasionally does, by accident. (OK, perhaps salmonella in peanut butter and mad cow disease aren't poison per se. Close enough.) Incredibly bad for business, I might add.

The real free market, the one the people who coined the phrase intended, is a specific set of constraints to produce a fair marketplace. It is tightly regulated to ensure it works as desired, it is by no means a free for all.

I will admit to not having actually read Adam Smith as such. I feel virtually certain he has a quote I can use to answer this, but 5 minutes with The Wealth of Nations and firefox search was not enough to uncover it. Those economists in the Austrian school, at least, would however disagree vehemently.

The whole point of an Invisible Hand is that maintenance of order will arise spontaneously from chaos, because order benefits everyone. All the externally imposed order of government does is force men into a pattern that is slightly unnatural.

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[mr_mischief]

The non-3G version gets free AT&T hotspot access. The 3G version gets free 3G access. They want you to use that for their books. If you root your tablet, you can download anything you want. I don't think they'll be subsidizing a bunch of us playing Doom for Nook across AT&T's network. They want to subsidize us buying their books.

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[tlhIngan]

Yeah, work in retail myself, in the past have been asked by a boss to go to a competitor and buy all their stock of one item, because they were selling it cheaper than our wholesaler.

This happens far more often than you think, actually. And it doesn't have to be a loss-leader, even! If you're a small store, you're a bother to the distributor. You don't move enough product, yet they have to stock some for you. If it's a hot item, you'll find you're the first to go on "allocation" and the last to get one or two of them.

I've talked to many people, and they often buy from Costco and Amazon because they can get their product way cheaper that way than their distirbutor is willing to sell them. And everyone's still making a profit along the way. One store owner even told people to buy a product online because he refuses to stock them (the terms for selling were quite onerous, and in the end, he'll pay MORE for the product than their online store).

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[metrometro]

I'm sorry, s/he meant to say "competitive" and "open" market. As we all know, "free" markets are totalitarian monopolies waiting to happen.

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[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Thank you. Someone who realizes that the term free market applies not only to the vendor but also the consumer. Once a consumer purchases the product the vendor should no longer have any say on how the product is used.

Sure void the warranty if my modification truly adversely affects the hardware but you shouldn't be able to use the force of law to prevent me from modify the product.

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[tehcyder]

If you're an economist, you're probably on the wrong site.

That remark would make sense if (a) slashdot threads never mentioned economics and (b) economists were only capable of discussing economics.

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[tehcyder]

What makes the muscle I pay to enforce my contracts with taxes inherently better than independently contracted muscle?

Why don't you do us all a favour and see how long you can hold your breath underwater while my two large friends hold your head down?

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[noidentity]

And in order for loss leaders to work in most cases you have to have some sort of monopoly. Even if it is just requiring the users to buy products that are licensed for it by producers that pay a licensing fee for the privilege.

Copyright and patents are government-enforced monopolies, so no surprise there.

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[noidentity]

Guys like you crack me up. You depend on the regulations as much or more than anyone else. You couldn't handle a truly free market. In a market with no regulations, you can't enforce a contract. In a truly free market your grocer can sell you poison and not tell you. If that's freedom to you, more power to you, but get ready to be screwed constantly, and screw constantly, because you won't survive unless you sink to their level.

Read about what free market means, please. It respects contracts and property rights (and not the imaginary ones, which are anti-free-market), since these are voluntary.

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[noidentity]

All the externally imposed order of government does is force men into a pattern that is slightly unnatural.

And give some men massive power over others. Man cannot be trusted with power, period, so the ONLY way to prevent this is to not give anyone power over anything beyond his own property, PERIOD. Every form of regulation favors some parties, or can be altered slightly to favor some other party. This makes it easier for these paries to gain power over others in the market.

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[tehcyder]

Exactly! Selling something at a loss is the EXACT same thing as selling people. I wish more people could see the connection, my friend.

Oh, and you know who else sells things at a loss to make more money on consumables? Hitler. So only buy a Nook if you support Hitler.

Thank you.

No, all GP meant was that laws against slavery were/are interfering with the pure free market, and that the only sane conclusion from this is that totally unrestricted free markets are not necessarily a good thing.

Although I know a lot of people here would conclude that it was the laws against slavery that were bad, as anything that interferes with the free market is bad.

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[aztracker1]

I always find it funny how many times I see posts on /. and think to myself, "did this person outright fail, not remember or just not pay attention to High School level economics classes?"

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[Beardo the Bearded]

My favorite local gaming store won't stock HeroScape because Wal-Mart sells it for less than he can buy it for. People would buy it from him when Wal-Mart was out-of-stock, then play his copy, buy a copy from Wal-Mart and return the Wal-Mart copy to him on the 30th day after purchase.

If you buy a billion units you get the item a lot cheaper than if you buy 10. That's true of everything.

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[Unequivocal]

Martin Luther King said something along the lines of, "The law can't make all white men love me, but it can keep them from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

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[Anonymous Coward]

What makes the muscle I pay to enforce my contracts with taxes inherently better than independently contracted muscle?

In theory, the fact that everybody else pays taxes and the "muscle" doesn't have any reason to protect one person more than another. Of course that's not perfect in practice. People often complain that police protection is inequitable based on wealth and status--which is exactly what you're proposing!

The whole point of an Invisible Hand is that maintenance of order will arise spontaneously from chaos, because order benefits everyone. All the externally imposed order of government does is force men into a pattern that is slightly unnatural.

Point 1 is spot on. Then you fail to make the connection. The Invisible Hand did give rise to order. The free market worked. It just so happens that the order to which it gave rise, is government. So. Quit complaining about it. Government is not "external". It's just another actor, which happens to have achieved monopoly status in some markets. I think that's just one of many ways in which economic thought fails.

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[s73v3r]

How? How does the free market inherently respect those?

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[s73v3r]

Actually, yes. I, as the parent poster above you, thought you meant undermining the free market.

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[s73v3r]

Not every comparison to slavery is absurd, and not every comparison to Hitler and the Nazis is a violation of Godwin's law. Get some fucking reading comprehension, and use context.

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[MorpheousMarty]

The second paragraph I wrote was about that.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Mind you, loss leaders (which subsidised hardware for expensive consumables are) are a distortion of a free market.

Indeed, they shouldn't be allowed to do such a thing in a free market.

Guys like you crack me up. You depend on the regulations as much or more than anyone else. You couldn't handle a truly free market. In a market with no regulations, you can't enforce a contract. In a truly free market your grocer can sell you poison and not tell you. If that's freedom to you, more power to you, but get ready to be screwed constantly, and screw constantly, because you won't survive unless you sink to their level.

The real free market, the one the people who coined the phrase intended, is a specific set of constraints to produce a fair marketplace. It is tightly regulated to ensure it works as desired, it is by no means a free for all.

That is patently false.

Government's job is to uphold the sanctity of contracts. You don't need regulation to do that, you need justice and law.

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[Anonymous Coward]

No, because the free market respects property rights including self ownership.

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[Noughmad]

maintenance of order will arise spontaneously from chaos, because order benefits everyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Africa. I wouldn't hold my breath for an arising of order there.

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[mr100percent]

Also, this will depend on whether rooting the device enables piracy.

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[Duradin]

People who know "1 + 1 = 3" are quite common, even around here. Just dig up the last .999... = 1 thread for proof.

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[Duradin]

Ever thought about taking some land in Libertopia, formerly Somalia?

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[Duradin]

You really think there'd be warranties in a free market? Caveat emptor would be the only rule.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, was the GP being opaquely sarcastic, or are you? Or maybe both? Neither?

I am so confused about who intended what now...

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[retchdog]

the meaning of "free" in "free market" is more tortured than that of "free" in "free software".

not that either one is wrong per se, but i just wish we could stop overloading that word. restricting it to individual human freedoms would be a start maybe.

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[retchdog]

imaginary ones? please state precisely which those are, and then show me a serious free market supporter (Austrian economist, Randian, whatever) who doesn't support any of them.

i won't hold my breath for a nontrivial answer.

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[cookie23]

Actually I doubt that the 3G version can download anything you want via 3G. The B&W version that has been rooted a long time has its 3G access is limited (on the carrier side) to only the B&N site. Rooting it doesn't let you go anywhere (with the 3G access) you couldn't go before it was rooted. I doubt they made the mistake of removing that protection in the newer version.

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[mcgrew]

They didn't have economics classes when I was in high school. Of course, I started high school in the '60s.

Economics wasn't even a (totally) required undergrad course when I was in college; you had a choice of economics or psychology.

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[zeroshade]

Government's job is also to protect the people from harm, such as clean and safe food, water and air. You DO need regulation to do that.

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[DanTheStone]

That's because the Library of Congress made jailbreaking of phones legal by adding it to the list of DMCA exceptions.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I'm betting most High Schools don't have econ classes.

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[re410]

The B&N DRM was cracked quite some time ago.

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[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

yes and prior to that, I don't think I can think of one person who jailbroke an iPhone and went to real jail.

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[Barny]

The device can already read non-drm books, so that is moot as rooting it doesn't add any new functionality in that regard.

Will be an interesting decision to watch none the less.

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[kcbnac]

Warranties become a matter of distinction, as they are now. Some places offer it as a 'bonus' others don't, but its cheaper.

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[mr100percent]

I meant if rooting the device made it easier to break the DRM on the existing ebooks

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[Barny]

Someone elsewhere in this thread pointed out that the B&N DRM has already been cracked, no citation but I am betting with a little googleing it could be found (fuck I love messing with words, turning a companies name into a adverb).

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[tehcyder]

then they will come down on this like apple.

Really? All I've seen Apple do is fix security vulnerabilities in their iOS devices. I haven't seen them, "come down" on jailbreaking. No one's gone to jail for jailbreaking.

That might have something to do with the fact that it's not illegal.

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[vegiVamp]

Uhh... If it's a genuine sale (as in, not a loss leader), I suspect the small competitor doesn't much care where the products go.

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[JimFive]

You don't need regulation to do that, you need justice and law.

Umm...Laws are regulations.

I was going to leave it at that, but on further reflection decided that it would be better to expound.

Contracts are just pieces of paper without a government to decide what they mean and how they should be enforced. That deciding is codified in laws which regulate the writing and enforcement of contracts. You seem to be using some other definition of "regulation". But, really, what is that definition other than "laws I don't like"? Every law regulates the actions of some entity, that is all they can do.

--
JimFive

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[icebraining]

We don't have econ classes in High School, you insensitive clod!

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[Anonymous Coward]

How'd that turn out?

Does this mean...?

[IBitOBear]

That I can then get _my_ books off of my nook onto my laptop in a readable format?

Seriously, at $10 for the book or $9 for the ebook (real sample prices for Harry Dresden novels, rounded up by one cent from nook store) there needs to be some way for me to recover "my property" off the device other than buying another one.

No, actually, I don't own a nook because of the "not really my book" and so the super-shallow discounts for the rental of a title made getting one "kinda dumb" IMHO.

B&N will _have_ to engage in the war of the lockouts. They likely must contractually. If I can get into the nook in general then those titles they are trying to rent and escrow for me become effective purchases and the various publishers surely don't allow for that. If they did I could get a nook account for my Gentoo laptop and be done with this.

(HEY Barnes and Nobel! If I could extend a nook account to include my Gentoo laptop as one of my five allowed clone devices, I would have bought the thing. Just Sayin...)

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says there aren't "methods" to do that already? If you get my drift...

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK You can already do that using the nook PC application... You need then to get rid of the DRM (if enabled for the book) if you want to use non Nook software to read it.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Christopher Fritz]

I buy specifically from Barnes and Noble because of an existing method to remove the DRM, allowing me to read the e-books I buy on my Onyx Boox e-reader.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Lumpy]

Actually yes. you can.

Every book you bought, go to piratebay.org and download a DRM stripped version in epub or pdf. Then you can read it on any other reader.

I did that for all my Kindle books after I discovered that the kindle sucks for any other use other than reading amazon ebooks. Stripped off all my books I bought and put them on the sony ereader that I replaced the kindle with.

Re:Does this mean...?

[DrXym]

I expect at worst you could recover the encrypted files. You might be able to get the plaintext if B&N were foolish enough to implement their crypto in software only. If they were smart then crypto is done in hardware and therefore it is more difficult but not impossible to recover the plaintext.

The most obvious way to recover plaintext from any ebook is to lay the thing on a flatbed scanner and take a picture of every page. I expect most OCR software would work extremely well given the quality of the display. The process could be automated of course (e.g simulate page turnand a more sophisticated hack might include replacing the display with a custom device which rips the screen data directly. If android were unrooted perhaps it would be possible to take screen shots from the display driver at intervals to accomplish the same.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

BN uses adobe DRM. Python scripts exist to break it. I know cause I've been rescuing my books from Fictionwise lately.

Jail break = more likely to buy

Re:Does this mean...?

[maxume]

Read the link in your sibling comment:

http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1890628&cid=34402532

In summary, the keys are stored on disk (with no obfuscation) and the key generation algorithm is weak.

Re:Does this mean...?

[zippthorne]

Can you run adobe digital editions? If you use that to manage your ebooks on your pc, you can put them on any device associated with the software.

I know this works with the 2-week loans from my library, I haven't checked yet if it works with books downloaded from B&N. At the moment, though, it doesn't look to me like you can move stuff *from* the nook onto the pc in this way.

You can, however, read the stuff in your nook library on any device with nook software. This includes PC software, an iPod app, and an android app, all at no charge. Devices that connect to the internet will even sync your last page read between them, with the latest software update.

It's starting to look like they're going for more of the "steam" model of DRM. Now they just need to migrate the prices to account for the much lower utility of a book only one person can read.

Re:Does this mean...?

[_xeno_]

That I can then get _my_ books off of my nook onto my laptop in a readable format?

I don't know about the Nook Color, but for the Nook itself, yes you can: easily. Without jailbreaking.

First, connect the Nook via USB. It's just a USB storage device using FAT32. All your downloaded ebooks will be in "my B&N downloads" on the root of the device. Annoyingly they're named by random numbers, but whatever, you can still grab them and get them off the device.

They will be DRMed, but the DRM is cracked and trivial: the key is the name on your credit card plus the credit card number itself. The idea is that you won't be willing to distribute the key. (Which is somewhat silly, since the key is actually an SHA1 hash of your credit card and name, and therefore you're really not giving anything out.)

Just Google for "ignoblekey" and "ignobleepub" and you should find two Python scripts to handle decrypting the files.

Finally, you'll need an application that supports reading EPUB files on your laptop. Calibre is apparently the best choice for Linux, so try "emerge calibre" and see if that works.

Also, there's no limit to the number of devices that you can copy the epub files to. As long as you log in to the Nook software using your account, you should be able to download books to any device that supports the Nook software. Which doesn't include Linux. Or Mac OS X. But does include the iPad, making me wonder why anyone would want to get a Nook Color.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm kind of torn on the subject. On the one hand, it's nice to have options, but on the other hand, we shouldn't need to do this in the first place in order to do what we want with paid for content, and by buying into these DRM schemes we're reinforcing their validity. Not only that, it's driving legitimate customers to the tools of piracy in order to do what they should be able to do by default.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, we got the Nook because it supported "Yes they really ARE my book" formats such as ePub and PDF. Some of the best reading is Nook-friendly file formats at Project Gutenberg. And O'Reilly and Associates sells non-DRM eBooks in Nook-friendly formats.

DRM is a wart on all eReaders, but at least the Nook doesn't invent its own standard file formats that will be forgotten in half a decade or less. I figure a standard format's DRM will end up cracked sooner or later, but a proprietary format means that someone not only has to care about decrypting, they have to be sufficiently ambitious to support using the data AFTER it's decrypted.

Re:Does this mean...?

[c6gunner]

I did that for all my Kindle books after I discovered that the kindle sucks for any other use other than reading amazon ebooks

Hey, could you elaborate on this point? I was just looking at getting a Kindle, and I plan to use it for project-gutenberg e-books as well as some PDF publications for work. It would be good to know what exactly "sucked" for you when using non-Amazon books.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's talking out of his ass. There's nothing wrong with reading non-Amazon books on the Kindle. I do it exclusively - I have yet to buy anything from them. Just make sure you download the mobi files or use Calibre to convert the text.

Re:Does this mean...?

[xaxa]

They will be DRMed, but the DRM is cracked and trivial: the key is the name on your credit card plus the credit card number itself. The idea is that you won't be willing to distribute the key. (Which is somewhat silly, since the key is actually an SHA1 hash of your credit card and name, and therefore you're really not giving anything out.)

I might not be able to work out what name+number made 298AC...898EAB, but B&N certainly can -- they have a list of all the name+number combinations.

Re:Does this mean...?

[DrXym]

I don't own any B&N device but I'd point out that just because it was done that way on one device / OS over a year ago does not necessarily mean it's done the same way now. It is possible for a device to support more than one crypto sceheme, or for this new device to store its key somewhere other than on disk. For example it could be stored in a flash partition that is inaccessible when the device is rooted.

If B&N were so incompetent the first time around I wouldn't credit them with doing any of that, but it's still a possibility I suppose.

Re:Does this mean...?

[maxume]

Sure, but at the moment it is well known that B&N is only using broken DRM systems.

Re:Does this mean...?

[brandorf]

Couldn't you have just used the Nook PC app under WINE? And on the subject, at least in comparison to Kindle, the DRM of B&N books is pretty easy to remove, leaving you with an unprotected ePub file. Though, I don't really recommend doing this for viewing on the Nook, just as a backup, as you lose all the social and sync features on side-loaded books.

Re:Does this mean...?

[nickersonm]

Can't you just download your bn.com-purchased books from the "My NOOK Library" section of their site? I don't have a Nook, but I do purchase eBooks from Barnes&Noble, and that is how I retrieve them.

Of course, then I have to decrypt their files (I use a pair of python scripts), load them into Calibre (or any epub reader), and then convert them to the format I want. It would be much simpler if they came without DRM.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Fizzol]

I don't know why this was modded down. He's right, there's no problem whatsoever in reading non-Amazon ebooks on your Kindle.

Re:Does this mean...?

[jschottm]

(HEY Barnes and Nobel! If I could extend a nook account to include my Gentoo laptop as one of my five allowed clone devices, I would have bought the thing. Just Sayin...)

You do realize that the cost of supporting one of the more obscure and arcane Linux distributions probably outweighs the income it would bring in, right? If you want to advocate for desktop Linux, you'll be far more effective if you ask for Fedora or Ubuntu support. Even that isn't all that likely to happen in the near future, but it beats tilting at windmills.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you can. I have Nook for PC installed, Nook for Android on my phone, and a Color Nook, and I can read the same book on any of the devices as I please. I don't have to repurchase to do that. They're available everywhere.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

That I can then get _my_ books off of my nook onto my laptop in a readable format?

I don't know about the Nook Color

Then why did you bother posting?

words

Wow, that's a lot of text used to say "no."

Re:Does this mean...?

[h4rr4r]

There is no PC software, there is only windows software. Not every personal computer runs windows.

Re:Does this mean...?

[h4rr4r]

No, it would cost $0 to support. All they have to do is give out ePubs without drm. Then it can be read everywhere.

Currently he can just crack their drm and do what he wants with the files anyway.

Re:Does this mean...?

[wembley fraggle]

It's also trivially easy with a few python scripts to strip the DRM from any kindle book you've purchased legally (think about it- the kindle has to be able to decrypt the book, and it's running on a pretty small chip). All you need to do is extract your decrypt key from the kindle, which turns out to be a function of the kindle's serial number.

I've done this for all the books I've bought for the kindle, to save a "just in case" version. It's also worth noting that the majority of piratebay books are pretty lousy OCR scans of books, with lots of markup and text errors. All the harry dresden books, for example, decided to be in a bold fond in the version I downloaded. Makes purchasing them a LOT more worthwhile (which I ended up doing for the first few, until I decided to give up on the series, but that's another story).

Still, I recognize that purchasing from amazon/bn/whoever is just supporting the business model of DRM, even if I strip out the DRM later. Would be nice to get somebody who didn't use platform lockin techniques, but that's probably unlikely in the near term.

Re:Does this mean...?

[highvista63]

I got a NOOKcolor rather than the iPad for quite a few reasons. Primary among these are that it's half the cost and what I consider a better size for reading eBooks.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

have you ever used a nook before? i'm going with no.

all of your books are on the website. so say your nook gets taken by space aliens and dropped into the sun. what can you do? well, you can log in to bn.com and get your books onto your computer. see? wasn't that easy?

it is a well informed troll, but troll non-the-less.

now if you had just complained about price or DRM in general, then I would agree with you. BUt don't say "it can't do X" when it clearly can.

Re:Does this mean...?

[taustin]

I own a Nook and, as of yesterday, a Nook Color. When you buy from B&N through the device, it downloads automatically, and I believe that copy is tied to that device. However, you can deregister that device, and download to another one whenever you want. More important, however, you can log in to your B&N account with any web browser, and download the .epub file, and "side load" it on to any device any time, or read it in any program that can read .epub files.

So I'm not sure what your complaint it.

As for having "to engage in the war of the lockouts," any argument you make for B&N applies doubly to Baen, which sells their ebooks in multiple, un-locked out formats from the day of release, as well as selling paper books with dozens of previous releases on a CD with permission to freely distribute those files. And they've done very, very well with that business model.

So I think your argument fails.

Re:Does this mean...?

[cdrguru]

I would agree that the Kindle makes a really awful device for watching videos, surfing the web or just about any activity other than reading books. The display is only gray scale and it is very slow compared to a LCD monitor. I would not want to do much writing on a Kindle as the keyboard is not really suited for it.

However, that being said, the Kindle is a really fine reading device and the free web connectivity means you can go out to web sites and download free books. It is not restricted in any way to Amazon. I have had a Kindle for almost two years and have spent maybe $100 total on Amazon books while downloading hundreds of free books. Yes, I travel a lot.

PDFs are only usable after being converted with something like Caliber or being processed by the (free) Kindle service. The problem is PDF is a page description language and the Kindle displays PDF documents as they were originally formatted. You can zoom out to see a page but it is a rare PDF document that fits on the screen in a viewable size. The Kindle DX was supposed to fix this and does to some extent but the problem still exists there as well - and the DX is just too big for most ordinary uses.

The answer with PDF is to have a reader that automatically reflows the pages and use only PDF files which are designed for this sort of reflow behavior. My understanding is that this only happens with true Adobe software with Adobe DRM - which neither the Kindle or Nook has. Without this PDF documents should be converted to a format for the device for viewing. And if it doesn't convert well, it wouldn't have been readable on a Kindle or Nook anyway so forget about it.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Anonymous Coward]

of course you can as well. simply iterate through all credit card numbers and names. credit cards have a specific format allowing you to iterate through a limited set of numbers and you can brute force the name, which is also a specific format and only a subset of the alphabet.

Re:Does this mean...?

[s73v3r]

Well, there is the Nook client software for PC/Mac, that lets you read their books on your computer. I think it even synchronizes the page you're on across devices. I don't think you can hook up a USB cable and get books off your Nook, however.

Re:Does this mean...?

[DragonWriter]

That I can then get _my_ books off of my nook onto my laptop in a readable format?

AFAIK, any book you buy from the Nook store can be used on the Nook, on the free Nook PC app, on the free Nook iOS app, and on the free Nook Android app.

Of course, nothing is requiring you to buy books from the Nook store to get use out of a Nook -- the Nook supports DRM-free ebooks in a number of popular formats (most importantly epub and PDF), which are available through a number of sources (both free and for-pay) on the internet.

Re:Does this mean...?

[Timmmm]

You're wrong. Even if you use common first and surnames, say 1000 of each, and say that 10 of the credit card digits are unknown that gives you
1000x1000x10^10 = 10^16 combinations.

For comparison, that's about the same as a 9-character random password containing lowercase, uppercase and digits. Good luck with that.

Re:Does this mean...?

[MrHops]

All the harry dresden books, for example, decided to be in a bold fond in the version I downloaded. Makes purchasing them a LOT more worthwhile (which I ended up doing for the first few, until I decided to give up on the series, but that's another story).

I saw what you did there...

Re:Does this mean...?

[shutdown -p now]

The Kindle DX was supposed to fix this and does to some extent but the problem still exists there as well - and the DX is just too big for most ordinary uses.

Ironically, while I had purchased DX specifically to be able to read PDFs on it, I found that I also prefer it for other books as well. Large screen size lets me make the font larger (and hence more readable) while still displaying a reasonable amount of text per page. The real issue is with its weight rather than size, but it's still not as heavy as iPad, and can be held in one hand with fingers positioned over the page flipping buttons.

Re:Does this mean...?

[froggymana]

I'm not sure about you, but I would rather them use a broken DRM system vs. one that is ridiculous and annoying (Assassin's creed 2 anyone?, which was broken too... but). Sure it might not be as good as no DRM, but I would take what you can get.

Re:Does this mean...?

[araphwael]

Still, I recognize that purchasing from amazon/bn/whoever is jus supporting the business model of DRM, even if I strip out the DRM later Would be nice to get somebody who didn't use platform lockin techniques, but that's probably unlikely in the near term

The publisher Baen (mostly sci fi and fantasy) has many (most? All?) of their titles available without drm. O'Reilly also sells their books without drm. It is not a hardship to either support ebook publishers for good behaviour or stick to dead tree.

Re:Does this mean...?

[tehcyder]

Every book you bought, go to piratebay.org and download a DRM stripped version in epub or pdf. Then you can read it on any other reader.

Although that might salve your conscience, it's still technically breaching copyright, and in places like the US I assume you are breaking the DCMA.anyway?

Re:Does this mean...?

[tehcyder]

you should be able to download books to any device that supports the Nook software. Which doesn't include Linux. Or Mac OS X. But does include the iPad, making me wonder why anyone would want to get a Nook Color.

At the risk of stating the obvious, 90%-odd of PCs run Windows, most Mac owners probably have an iPhone they can use, and big companies do not care about the 1 or 2% running Linux/BSD/whatever.

This is obviously not a good thing, but it is the current situation.

Re:Does this mean...?

[metamatic]

Note that Amazon's Kindle DRM has also been cracked.

This is the sorry state of affairs.

[jack2000]

A BOOK READER, needs to get jailbroken. Way to go guys, way to go. What's next would you make me give you money to look at your ugly advertisement billboards by the side of the road?

Re:This is the sorry state of affairs.

[wiredog]

Or you can buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which doesn't need to be jailbroken.

Re:This is the sorry state of affairs.

[DragonWriter]

Or you can buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which doesn't need to be jailbroken.

And costs twice as much as a NOOKcolor.

THe question is "how much is not jailbreaking worth to you". For most users, probably a lot -- but for plenty of geeks, jailbreaking isn't much of a cost (for some, even, its a negative cost.)

Could be very, very good for BN

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as I saw this thing was rooted, I ran out and bought one - partially because it is a really nice little Android tablet, but mostly because it's a damn nice reader. The first app I put on it was the Kindle app. It's arguably the best Kindle reader out there.

I also bought some Nook books, which I had not done before.

I would not have either purchased a Nook (I expect there will be better/cheaper Android tabs very shortly - look at all the dual core tegra tablets on the way...) or purchased any Nook Books, except it now runs my Kindle library.

The Nook absolutely rocks, BTW. Wonderful form factor, lots of space, pretty quick, decent price. Could maybe use a few more buttons (menu and back are missing) but that can be worked around. It also needs Froyo, but other than that, awesome device.

Would love to see iSuppli pricing for this thing; since it's basically a repackaged Beagle Board, I bet they are doing OK on each unit. Got to be much cheaper to build than an iPad and iSuppli priced that at $229 back in February - and that had a lot more flash on board. $150?

Re:Could be very, very good for BN

[hatrisc]

Does the Kindle app require a menu and/or back button? That's my biggest concern with buying one. I'm certain that this i sa first step in liberating the NC in all it's glory, but the lack of the physical buttons makes me wonder how far this can actually go. One thing I've actually seen suggested is using the volume buttons for back and menu, which seems like a great idea--especially since volume control can be accessed from onscreen settings.

Re:Could be very, very good for BN

[Anonymous Coward]

Works fine without it. With most non-native apps, there is a little window which pops up and has menu/back on it.

Re:Could be very, very good for BN

[slyrat]

As soon as I saw this thing was rooted, I ran out and bought one - partially because it is a really nice little Android tablet, but mostly because it's a damn nice reader. The first app I put on it was the Kindle app. It's arguably the best Kindle reader out there.

I also bought some Nook books, which I had not done before.

I would not have either purchased a Nook (I expect there will be better/cheaper Android tabs very shortly - look at all the dual core tegra tablets on the way...) or purchased any Nook Books, except it now runs my Kindle library.

The Nook absolutely rocks, BTW. Wonderful form factor, lots of space, pretty quick, decent price. Could maybe use a few more buttons (menu and back are missing) but that can be worked around. It also needs Froyo, but other than that, awesome device.

Would love to see iSuppli pricing for this thing; since it's basically a repackaged Beagle Board, I bet they are doing OK on each unit. Got to be much cheaper to build than an iPad and iSuppli priced that at $229 back in February - and that had a lot more flash on board. $150?

I'm just waiting for something like this to work with an e-reader that uses e-ink. The e-ink is 75% of why I got an e-reader since it is much easier to read.

Re:Could be very, very good for BN

[DragonWriter]

I'm just waiting for something like this to work with an e-reader that uses e-ink.

The e-Ink based Nook (which also runs Android) was rooted and used to run regular Android apps fairly quickly after it was released. As I understand it, though, the two screen layout made it awkward, because apps aren't designed for that setup.

People READ books?

[digitaldc]

Who knew? I didn't think this generation's attention span lasted longer than 3 minutes.

Re:People READ books?

[locallyunscene]

Who knew? I didn't think this generation's attention span lasted longer than 3 minutes.

Who knew? I didn't think any old people could use the internet.

Re:People READ books?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knew? I didn't think this generation's attention span lasted longer than 3 minutes.

No generation reads books. Not the Millenials, not Gen X, not the Boomers, and not (what's left of) the Greatest. None of them read.

But tiny subsets of every generation do.

Re:People READ books?

[MozeeToby]

Harry Potter (and books like it) saved the world of literature for the next generation as sad as that is. These books aren't high art, but they got a whole group of kids interested in reading that never would have otherwise.

Meh, the color nook is stupid anyway

[zippthorne]

I mean, it's almost all of the expense of a tablet, without the features, and you can't read it as well in the daytime as the original nook. B&N should focus on doing their core business - stuff people read - well.

Re:Meh, the color nook is stupid anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because the color Nook is the only one you can get now....

Get over yourself. If you have 1/10th the insight into business that these people had you wouldn't be posting on Slashdot while getting ready for your pizza delivery gig.

Re:Meh, the color nook is stupid anyway

[LWATCDR]

Because no one reads Car and Driver, Road and Track, Cycle World, Sports Illustrated, Mother Earth News, Maximum PC, , Time, Newsweek, Discovery, Scientific American, or any of those magazines full of color pictures.

Re:Meh, the color nook is stupid anyway

[zippthorne]

Well, to be fair, I've got the other nook. I like it very much, but there are plenty of spots for improvement. So, I am a bit selfish in that regard, not wanting them to eschew resources on the nook I actually like...

Re:Meh, the color nook is stupid anyway

[JimFive]

Slightly off topic, but how do you like it. I took a look right after they came out and the interface seemed slow and clunky, especially browsing my library, which, in my mind, should not be using the network. I understand that they have added a search function to the library so having a lot of books isn't as cumbersome as it was. Right now I'm considering the Sony and the Nook.
--
JimFive

Re:Meh, the color nook is stupid anyway

[zippthorne]

The interface still could use a bit of work (the biggest improvement imo was the 1.4 update).

I think they may not have put enough thought into the design paradigm they would be using, as the short height of the touch screen gives very little throw to scroll menus with, and there is no part of the screen that is safe from registering a "button push" if you intended to scroll.

But the reading itself is great, (t's already turned me off to paper books for the most part) and the latest update made the page turns significantly faster.

The recent update also added a kind-of directory system to keep your books together (why they didn't do tags/labels instead is a mystery to me, though. The physical folder model is a limitation of imagination, not of the actual hardware)

Browsing the library does not use the network, though. I'm not sure why you got that impression from your test. I can only guess that some of the slowness was maybe cover-show mode, or that the original interface used a more cumbersome highlight method that took longer to draw/erase.

The best thing that I could say for it, though, is that unlike the Kindle, it reads ePubs natively. The format allows DRM, but does not require it; you can hand craft them from text without too much difficulty if you feel like it, and since they're just marked-up text, they reflow pretty easily.

Anyway, the 1.5 release is quite a bit improved from what they were shipping last year. If you're on the fence, it might be worth it to try it out in the store again.

Say it isn't so

[Zero__Kelvin]

You do know that at any given point in time there are multiple generations still living, right?

Re:Say it isn't so

[Abstrackt]

Who knew? I didn't think this generation's attention span lasted longer than 3 minutes.

You do know that at any given point in time there are multiple generations still living, right?

Of course not! A fact like that would really take the wind out of a good rant! ;)

I've taken my kids to the library regularly pretty much since they could do more than gurgle and throw up on my shirt. Every week or two we head down there, drop off a pile of books and leave with another, for free. I can browse the library's catalog online and have the books waiting for me by the time I show up. If my library doesn't have the book I can get it from another, for free.

I've taught my kids to look for cheaper alternatives in their entertainment selections so books from the library are near the top of their list.

Re:Say it isn't so

[JimFive]

I can browse the library's catalog online and have the books waiting for me by the time I show up. If my library doesn't have the book I can get it from another, for free.

I used to be able to do that. Now my local library charges a quarter per hold request, I haven't tried the interlibrary loan since they imposed the fee so I'm not sure what they charge for that.

I wondered why they imposed the fee (which on the one hand is annoying and on the other clearly doesn't pay for the service) but now I imagine that their goal was to free up employee time by stopping people from doing what you are doing. The library staff isn't really there to go collect the books off of the shelves for you.
--
JimFive

Why remove functionality?

[Enderandrew]

Would it cost Barnes and Noble a penny to include the App Market?

Why remove 95% of the functionality and make your product worth less to your customers? Are you worried that people will buy your tablet, and download the Kindle app? Then make your book store the best! Customers might just support your store because they enjoy your tablet.

I want an Android tablet that I can flash and update with new releases, that has a decent touchscreen. Is that really too much too ask? Is there no company out there that wants my business?

Re:Why remove functionality?

[LWATCDR]

Yes it would cost and they may not have the option too.
Google has requirements for a device to get the App Market. It pretty much has to be a phone. Most tablets don't have the App Market. Also by creating their own app market they can make money off the apps. It is really that simple. So yes it will cost them money.
Now I do feel B&N not putting the Kindle app on their reader is dumb as a box of rocks. I like a lot of people already have a Kindle. I would love to get this and use it as a reader and if the shopping system was really good and the prices good I would buy books from B&N as well as Amazon.
Right now Amazon has me because they have more of the books I want and I already have a Kindle. B&N is missing the chance to take me from Amazon.

And yes the NookColor with the App store would be a very very interesting product and I too would buy it.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[mofolotopo]

BN intends to open their own app store in January. If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say that they don't want the competition.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[Enderandrew]

The Galaxy Tablet has the Android App Market. I'm not sure why Archos and such haven't been given access yet.

I'm assuming the build of Android on the tablet needs to handle resizing the apps for the resolution.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[b0bby]

I'm not sure why Archos and such haven't been given access yet.

I thought it was that Google doesn't allow access to the Market if the device doesn't have 3G data.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[LWATCDR]

That is why I said most. The Galaxy is the only one I know that does have the market. I am not sure if the requirement is 3G data or maybe you can make calls for the Galaxy?
Google may also require GPS ,compass , and or a camera for all I know. Which may be why the Galaxy tablet is so expensive and why the app market might not be an option for the Nook.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[silentace]

Although I somewhat agree with your comment, just because something is "the best" doesn't make people use it. Without trying to start a huge discussion about products just look at "the best" of something where there is a better alternative that people don't use just because something else is more popular.

Android/Iphone... MAC OSX/Windows... one or the other (depending on the person) will be "the best" but it doesn't mean anything. If the nook made an amazing book store, people may still use amazon because they have a bunch of purchases already or they have another device they want to use all their books on as well.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[ZosX]

Yes, and the galaxy also features phone functionality. It is just locked away for the us market, but otherwise you can use it to make calls.

Think of it as an over sized galaxy s.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[DragonWriter]

Would it cost Barnes and Noble a penny to include the App Market?

Yes, including a competing app store would cost them many of the pennies they hope to make through selling apps via their own curated app store.

That's not even to mention the fact that the Nook doesn't, as I understand it, meet the requirements to have access to the Android Market.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it cost Barnes and Noble a penny to include the App Market?

Why remove 95% of the functionality and make your product worth less to your customers? Are you worried that people will buy your tablet, and download the Kindle app? Then make your book store the best! Customers might just support your store because they enjoy your tablet.

I want an Android tablet that I can flash and update with new releases, that has a decent touchscreen. Is that really too much too ask? Is there no company out there that wants my business?

The Nook color is an eReader that happens to use Android as the underlying operating system. I don;t see how BN had any obligation or even reasonable reason to include the Android App Market in its eReader.

Re:Why remove functionality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has certain requirements for a company to get the Google Apps as part of Android (Gmail, Calendar, Market, etc). One of those requirements is that the device have 3G. Aside from the Galaxy Tab, none do, which is why they don't get those apps without hacks.

Semantics

[LordCrank]

Jailbreaking is breaking out of a software-based jail, necessary to gain access to anything outside of a sandbox. On an iPhone this is necessary before one can root the device.

Rooting is simply gaining root privileges, and is all that is needed here.

Because that isn't the distortion

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that isn't the distortion. The distortion comes when the consumables become tied to the loss leading product. In which case, the distortion is that the cost isn't the product but the product plus the enforced consumable purchase.

cf Lexmark using DMCA and a chip to refuse to print with ink that they didn't sell. This is a distortion of the free market by tying.

Same here.

Note also that the term "grey import" is a violation of the free market. If they're imported, they're an import, not a grey one.

Good news...

[bayankaran]

I use a Sony Ebook reader for many years. I will gladly buy a new one if it can run Android/TABLET features. E-ink displays are more comfortable than any backlit display. Meanwhile waiting for a DUAL SIM Android phone...

Re:Good news...

[Anonymous Coward]

The colour nook is not e-ink, its a regular backlit display

The free market isn't free in every sense

[brokeninside]

A free market where buyers and sellers are unimpeded in their buying and selling behavior is the intuitive definition of a free market but it is not the definition that economists used.

Economically speaking, a free market has certain defined attributes such as no one seller (and no one buyer) being able to affect the purchase price. Loss leaders are a distortion of the free market in this technical sense as goods are not being sold to produce a profit but are being used instrumentally as advertising to persuade people to purchase some other product. As such, the loss-leading price distorts the market equilibrium.

So while it's within the freedom of firms in the marketplace to engage in such behavior, if they choose to do so, it destroys the calculations that supply/demand price theory require in order to make neoclassical economics work.

a free market does not give buyers that power

[brokeninside]

In a free market, no one sets prices and determines desired profits. Rather prices are a function of market equilibrium and market equilibrium determines the normal profit in any given market segment.

Selling below cost distorts this process. A rational seller cannot consistantly sell below cost. A negative profit would drive him or her out of business over time.

What happens with loss leaders is that sellers are effectively using the market as advertising. They are hoping that buyers will be attracted by what is an irrational price. Sellers hope to recoup their losses on other commodities. Be that as it may, the practice distorts the price of the loss leader as a commodity. This is a market inefficiency. A free market, in the economic sense, theoretically weeds out such inefficiencies over time.

But that this practice distorts the free market should not be confused with whether or not the egents involved have the freedom to distort the market in such a way. That's a whole other discussion.

Re:a free market does not give buyers that power

[Abcd1234]

Selling below cost distorts this process. A rational seller cannot consistantly sell below cost.

Of course they can.

For example, a rational seller stocking a highly desirable item may raise the price of that item, while subsidizing the cost of other items in their stock, in order to attract customers to their business.

Re:a free market does not give buyers that power

[Registered Coward v2]

In a free market, no one sets prices and determines desired profits. Rather prices are a function of market equilibrium and market equilibrium determines the normal profit in any given market segment.

A free market is simply one with no government regulation so everyone is free to price as they see fit. You may be confusing that with a commodity market where all producers are price takers.

Selling below cost distorts this process. A rational seller cannot consistantly sell below cost. A negative profit would drive him or her out of business over time.

True, which is an argument for predatory pricing as well; although that is a separate discussion.

What happens with loss leaders is that sellers are effectively using the market as advertising. They are hoping that buyers will be attracted by what is an irrational price. Sellers hope to recoup their losses on other commodities. Be that as it may, the practice distorts the price of the loss leader as a commodity. This is a market inefficiency. A free market, in the economic sense, theoretically weeds out such inefficiencies over time.

Loss leaders are not necessarily market inefficiencies - if they produce the desired result the seller makes the desired profit; if not they stop selling it at that price. Either way, consumers benefit from a lower price.

But that this practice distorts the free market should not be confused with whether or not the egents involved have the freedom to distort the market in such a way. That's a whole other discussion.

True. I clearly believe they should be allowed to do that since it benefits the consumer.

About your post

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr

used ebooks?

[hort_wort]

Used ebook market, will there be one?

If I buy a $70 ebook for a class, finish the class, then want to sell the ebook, will I ever be able to do that? A year ago there was speculation about possibly sending the original publisher a cut every time such a transfer took place in a dedicated market, a type of ebay for ebooks. Anyone know of more recent developments on this? This is one of the biggest turn offs for me with digital content, steam especially.

Re:used ebooks?

[JimFive]

Probably not. But Barnes and Nobles was advertising a "rent an etextbook" deal around September where you paid less but it was time limited. I'm not really sure how it was implemented or whether it worked out for anyone.
--
JimFive

Re:used ebooks?

[hort_wort]

Yes! I came across that feature when looking into them further yesterday, very interesting! I'm hoping that will develop into a discount for future editions of a book already owned. I always like to have a copy of the latest technical bible available. :D

The Business Case Against Root-Tolerance

[DCheesi]

The whole point of B&N (or Amazon) releasing their own e-reader is to lock people into buying e-books exclusively from them. I'm wiling to bet that they subsidize the cost of their devices in exchange for the expected profits from this vendor lock-in. If so, then every Nook that isn't used to buy e-books, or that is used to buy e-books from a rival source, represents a net loss for B&N. Allowing the Nook Color to remain rooted would encourage just such alternative uses, which is why I don't expect it to be tolerated.

Re:The Business Case Against Root-Tolerance

[futuresheep]

The whole point of B&N (or Amazon) releasing their own e-reader is to lock people into buying e-books exclusively from them. I'm wiling to bet that they subsidize the cost of their devices in exchange for the expected profits from this vendor lock-in. If so, then every Nook that isn't used to buy e-books, or that is used to buy e-books from a rival source, represents a net loss for B&N. Allowing the Nook Color to remain rooted would encourage just such alternative uses, which is why I don't expect it to be tolerated.

While Barnes and Noble would love it if you buy books from then, the Nook and Nook Color support Adobe Digital Editions and Overdrive. I can checkout books from my local library system as well. You can also buy books from any seller that supports epub and. So unlike Amazon, B&N does NOT have you locked into their store at all.

Re:The Business Case Against Root-Tolerance

[Sir_Lewk]

You know what works great?

Browsing the web on my Kindle 3 for freely available/public domain books from 3rd party websites, and having my unhacked Kindle download them straight into my collection for me.

Yeah, that's some real heavy lockdown there.

Not supporting Epub is nothing more than an annoyance. It's trivial to convert books to mobi, or other formats. Calibre does it for me...

Re:The Business Case Against Root-Tolerance

[fermion]

For Amazon, they likely subsidize the cost of the cell service with ebooks. The costs of device is like the cost of the device, even if it only covers fixed cots.

The reader is only part of the equation. One can perfectly well buy eBook from Amazon, for example, without paying for a Kindle. Amazon ebooks can be read on any number of devices. The same may be true for Nook. It is not so true for media sold through Apple.

The point of an eBook reader is so the consumer buys ebooks. Without a reader, there would be much less of a market. Money is invested in the tech so that people will buy books. It is like saying Google subsidizes computers or phones so that people will search. Clearly the $500 android phone is not subsidzied.

Re:The Business Case Against Root-Tolerance

[DragonWriter]

The whole point of B&N (or Amazon) releasing their own e-reader is to lock people into buying e-books exclusively from them.

Then why do many readers (including both the Nook and Kindle)accept DRM-free content from other sources. And, I believe, the Nook even accepts DRM-laden content from other sources using compatible DRM.

Because, that seems incompatible with locking people in to buying from the vendor's store exclusively.

Now, buy bundling the vendor's store with the product and making it convenient, they are certainly making it more convenient to buy from the vendor's store, which then locks you into a relationship with the vendor to access the content. Which is clearly something that the vendors want to encourage with the devices. But nothing forces you into exclusivity with most of the existing e-readers. They aren't locked down for e-book content the way, say, an Apple iOS devices is for apps, where the only way you can get them is through the vendor's store.

Re:The Business Case Against Root-Tolerance

[cookie23]

At least with B&N I don't think they care about exclusivity that much, at least not from the design they chose. I think they just want prime exposure for their sales app. They don't seem to really care about the free books you add from other sources. The existing store already shows free books (from Google I believe) where applicable. They present all the storage as a mass storage device and make it as easy as any MP3 player to add books to outside the store. They seem to want to make it as easy as possible to find and buy books from them, but ultimately to keep you using it hoping the convince of the built in store will win out. If you look at the B&W Nook, it was not designed with security in mind and until a recent hardware revision it was easy to just revert 1.0 and root any nook. The firmware is on a removable micro sd card you can move to another device and penetrate, that is not a design you would use if you wanted it secured. They haven't started a battle to lock out the hackers. They may not encourage them or help them, but they certainly aren't fighting them. That is probably because there isn't a downside. Rooting doesn't let you abuse the cell modem or bypass the DRM. The B&W version has been rooted for a long time and they don't seem to care if its rooted because they can still sell books to it. If poeple find a way to alter their Nook and they end up using it more without B&N having to support it or develop it then that is all the better for them.

price

[grumpyman]

Honestly I really don't understand the pricing behind some of the higher-end such as Samsung Galaxy pad.

Re:price

[ZosX]

Early adopters always pay a premium. It is priced competitively with the high end android phones, which are also about $5-600.

Free 3G wireless internet?

[colfer]

Doesn't this thing have 3G with no monthly charge?

Re:Free 3G wireless internet?

[iammani]

Not on the color version. Free 3G is only available on $199 grey scale version.

Re:Free 3G wireless internet?

[tlhIngan]

Doesn't this thing have 3G with no monthly charge?

It's actually locked down something fierce. Unlike Amazon, where you get free 3G, the nook's 3G is limited to B&N only. You cannot go anywhere else unless you can bounce it through B&N's servers. Access to anything else (via the web browser) is WiFi-only.

(Yes, you can do that - it's how carriers can differentiate between a featurephone dataplan, a blackberry dataplan, a smartphone dataplan, tethering plan, and full VPN dataplans. All overring various levels or proxies, image deresolution, NAT, firewalling, and the like. Full VPN is most expensive, but it gets you a real life IP address, while the tethers usually just get you some NAT'd thing. Featurephone plans are limited to certain sites only and images are rescaled for the tiny screen, etc.

In the same vein, carriers can limit your access to certain sites, like the nook is restricted to B&N only.

Re:Free 3G wireless internet?

[gknoy]

But, at home, I can use it with my local wireless network, right?

Exactly - and here's an example.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is milk cheaper at a convenience store than at the supermarket?

You may notice that everything else in the convenience store is priced higher than you can find elsewhere. The Milk is a (realative) loss leader. They may make a profit on milk but it gets you in the store. You go in for milk and buy other things at a huge profit for the seller- off setting the loss they take on the sale of milk.

The point of a loss leader is to get you in the store and opening your wallet. From there marketing takes over.

Re:Exactly - and here's an example.

[geminidomino]

Why is milk cheaper at a convenience store than at the supermarket?

Must be a regional thing... at least here, in SW Florida, milk follows the same pattern as everything else in those places, with the added bonus of (anecdote alert) seeming to be spoiled despite the shelf-date.

it works!

[Anonymous Coward]

yep, writing this on a rooted nook color right now.
now I'll go back to playing angry birds on the thing until someone ports cyanogenmod to the device ...

They will not react well...

[grapeape]

My understanding is that the Nook is basically a loss leader, with the difference made up on book sales. With it rooted that opens it to kindle or whatever else...while its good for the end user (heck im thinking I need one now) B&N is likely going to completely freak out. The likely reaction is a swift essential "update" that blocks the current exploit.

Re:They will not react well...

[Raxxon]

Except that if you knew how the "exploit" worked....

(1) Not An Exploit. They're making use of the features of the hardware.
(2) Hardware Change Required. The feature they're using to push root access to the device is the fact that the unit is hard-wired to look to USB boot devices before booting off of internal storage. All current NookColor units are going to be 'unrecoverable' from this failure. Depending on how upset BN is at this will determine if future units will be fixed or not.

"certainly beats out the competition..."

[RocketRabbit]

"the $250 price tag certainly beats out some of the competition"

Like what competition?

I would say if the submitter is slyly winking at Apple here they are slightly insane.